


The Tale of the Kidnapped Maidens

by BranHowe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Canon-Typical Violence, Codependent Winchesters (Supernatural), Crossdressing, De-Aged Sam Winchester, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22680370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BranHowe/pseuds/BranHowe
Summary: In which Sam wears a skirt most of the time.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank [Sumira79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumira79/) for helping with the beta of the story, thanks for putting up with my insistence X3

Sam lost the bet. Fair and square. And he hated it but he had to comply because if there’s something worse than losing a bet, it’s being a sissy about it and not wanting to do what he had promised he would do if he lost. Thankfully, he didn’t have to explain anything about his choice of garments considering this school was one of the small ones and everybody knew exactly why he was wearing them. Even the teachers.

A current friend of his had given him the clothes he was wearing right now. There was no way he would actually have had anything like this in his own wardrobe so Dean was none-the-wiser about his current outfit, thank god, otherwise he would have bothered him about it all even before he could have stepped out of the motel room. He waited until the very last moment he could to run from the bathroom he had changed in to get his books from his locker and rush to his class where everybody was eagerly expecting his entrance. 

The girls were gossiping and the boys were already planning what catcalls they would give the young Winchester when he peeked into the classroom door, ears already red with embarrassment, and came in when he saw class had not started yet.

“Excuse me.”

“Almost late, Winchester.”

“M’ sorry Miss Pence.”

Sam opened the door and came into the class, keeping his face down for a second and wondering when the barrage of catcalls and raunchy comments only twelve year old kids could make would start but nothing happened.

He turned his eyes up and saw all the kids looking at him stunned. Thankful that they were not making any awful comments yet, he rushed to his seat while the other kids stared at him. When the first hour came to an end, his friend came to him, evidently excited. 

“Oh My God Sam, you look so pretty!”

Sam, who had managed to stop caring about his outfit dealing with math problems suddenly remembered the, extremely short to his own opinion, pleated skirt and high socks he was wearing. He blushed, groaned and placed his hands in front of his face, trying to hide from the world. Mostly because this first encounter of the day had apparently been all the girls in the class needed to surround him and begin praising and cooing him with how cute and pretty he looked. Oddly enough and to his own surprise, the boys were also looking at him but kept inexplicably silent.

This happened all morning; even the boy that had won the bet against him stopped gloating and turned silent the moment he laid eyes on Sam during the fourth hour.

Sam was agonizing, he had been expecting grade A levels of jackass comments like “Sam is a girl!” and “Nice skirt pussy” but he had only been praised by girls all over the place while the boys had avoided him so far. When lunch arrived, he ate with the girls still around him, cooing him and putting decorative barrettes in his hair, adding insult to injury. He was just finishing his food when he finally saw his brother entering the cafeteria, surrounded by a pair of guys, chatting happily. He did his best to hide but Dean, always able to find his brother at a glance, found him and waved at him before snorting, noticing what the girls were doing with his hair.

Sam looked away, more self conscious than ever. He knew his brother also had caught wind of the bet he’d lost but wondered if he had already found out Sam was wearing a skirt because of it. If there was anything that mortified Sam more than standing in front of twenty something kids in a classroom wearing a skirt, it was standing in front of his brother like that. He had already made a plan to run all the way to the bathroom once the bell rang before going to meet his brother at the entrance to walk back home. 

Sticking to his plan, the moment he heard the chime, Sam stood up and dropped everything in his bag. He had barely walked out of the door when he heard his brother.

“Hey Sam, I need you to—”

Sam turned to look at his brother, who halted the moment he saw the skirt, eyes fixed on his brother’s legs. So that answered his question. Feeling his neck burn he said, “I... I’ll see you outside!” and ran towards the closest bathroom, well aware that he was ignoring Dean’s calls.

Once in his own baggy pants, loose flannel and comfy boots, Sam was finally able to take a breath and walk in peace towards the place where his brother usually met him. He was already there, idly tearing leaves from a bush. 

“What did you want?”

Dean turned to look at him a bit oddly but his expression quickly turned to his usual laidback smirk. “Nothing, already took care of it. Ready to go?”

Sam looked at his brother for a moment and then nodded. The motel was ten blocks away and they walked in silence for six of them when Sam finally snapped.

“Alright, just say it!”

“Say what?”

“That I looked stupid! That I’m a girl! Whatever it is you want to say!”

Dean’s eyes widened and then his expression turned sad. 

“Sam, I don’t think any of that.”

Sam snorted and walked faster.

“Hey Sam, Sam!” Dean reached him and stopped his angry fast pace. “I mean it. You don’t look stupid at all.”

“Of course I do. None of the guys talked to me today and the girls were treating me like some kind of doll!”

Dean snorted. “Well that… that’s because you looked like a doll.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean… Damn it Sam, you didn’t look at yourself in the mirror? You looked really pretty! I bet all the kids in your class are doubting their sexuality right now.”

“Ew Dean, gross!”

Dean laughed now that Sam seemed a little bit less edgy and followed the kid’s quick, frustrated pace. “I mean, I have to be honest, I’m actually glad you were born a boy now. I would have to get into a lot more fights if you had been a girl.”

Sam groaned and quickened his pace, he was not going to be able to outrun his brother but he could at least try.

They ate in relative peace and did their homework soon after, leaving a long time in the afternoon to relax. Sam thanked god tomorrow was Saturday and he was not going to meet anyone from school until Monday. He didn’t realize Dean was looking at him instead of the tv.

“Hey Sam...”

“Mhm?”

“Put on that skirt again.”

Sam turned to look at his brother, he thought he was pulling his leg but his face didn’t express that.

“You just want to make fun of me.”

“No, I… I don’t.”

“Then why do you want me to wear it?”

Dean blushed and looked away, fixing his eyes on the tv. “Forget it. I never said anything.”

Sam felt frustrated with his brother. He didn’t understand why he wanted to see him with that skirt once more if it weren’t to make fun of him. But if it had been that, he could have been pestering him all the way home and he hadn’t done that either. Dean had said he looked pretty but did he mean pretty like boy pretty or girl pretty? Dean had been right about the fact that he had not even bothered to look at himself wearing the outfit, concentrated as he had been with feeling embarrassed all day long.

For the first time in his twelve years, Sam wondered what it would feel like to be a girl and decided that, given he already had the skirt in his bag, he might as well try it on and see. With a huff, he stood up from their bed and moved into the bathroom, bag in hand. He was feeling way too conscious to change into a skirt in front of his brother.

When he was done, he took in a deep breath and stepped out. Dean looked at him and his eyes opened wide once more.

“I can’t believe you convinced me to do this. This is so stupid.”

Dean stood up, took Sam by the shoulders and pulled him all the way until they were in front of the full mirror by the closet, he turned him towards his reflection, standing a little bit behind and it wasn’t until then that Sam really understood why everyone had reacted the way they had. 

Long slim torso, arms and legs, highlighted by the skirt and high socks made him look nice but it was his dishevelled, childish bob that helped create the illusion of an incredibly cute brunette girl, looking at him with his own speechless face.

He opened his mouth a couple of times but was unable to say a thing. He saw his brother get near him.

“Told ya you looked like a doll.”

He felt his cheeks burn. Dean had been completely honest about it. He didn’t look okay, he was downright the prettiest girl he had seen in his life and the wildest part was that this girl was himself. He looked down to his shoes, it was way too much. He didn’t notice himself trembling.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay Sam, I’m here.” He felt Dean’s arms around him and it wasn’t until that moment when he threw himself at his brother’s arms that he realized he was actually crying. It would take him a long time, years, to realize why but today he just cried.

“This is so unfair! Why am I so pretty?”

Dean laughed in earnest now. “This is so unfair, I can’t date the prettiest girl in school if that girl is my brother.”

Now Sam laughed with Dean; everything was stupid and nothing made sense but he was being held by Dean and that was okay. 

Sam used the skirt all weekend, up until the moment he had to throw it in the laundry to have it clean before he gave it back. For some reason, he became slightly forlorn and the look didn’t leave him even when they left that place a month later, until his brother took a moment to come close to him before jumping on their father’s car. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you another skirt and a tiara later, make you a real princess.”

Sam punched his brother out of principle but was happy with the promise.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam looked at the group of girls prancing in front of him, not because he really wanted to look at them but because they were directly in front of his line of sight once he lifted his eyes from the notebook he had been writing on. He didn’t spare much time on them but he did linger enough to make Dean’s attention turn to them as well. His brother turned back to him after a moment.

“What? Missing the skirts?”

Sam looked at him with an accusatory look and a grimace. Dean snorted. 

“Hey, you did look pretty in them.”

Sam groaned, “Come on Dean, that was ages ago.”

“So? I never said it was wrong. In fact seeing how much you ended up growing you might have been lucky hitting the skirt phase at the right time.”

Sam looked away, a little embarrassed but he inwardly agreed with him. It had barely been a year and counted weeks before he began stretching up and the skirts stopped looking good on his slanky teenager boy frame. Dean had somehow managed to get him three skirts: a red plaid one, a denim one and a bottle green wool jersey one he used almost the entire winter when their father was away. He doesn’t know how he got a hold of them but they disappeared as quickly as they appeared once Sam asked him to get rid of them, his father none-the-wiser.

“I was wondering what kind of monster goes after prepubescent girls. And I forbid you to make any jokes about it.” Warned Sam when Dean was already lifting up his finger to make a comeback.

“Wasn’t gonna be a joke but yeah, good call, might have been a bit too much.”

Sam scoffed softly. He thanked the waitress when she arrived with a new coffee that his brother might have probably asked for while he was taking notes down and went back to doing research on his laptop.

The fourth disappearance happened to be a boy. Sam and Dean felt frustration creep over them when they realized this kid had been abducted while they were out and about asking questions but they couldn’t do much more than keep on digging. They went to interview the mother and Sam asked to see the kid’s computer to see if he had maybe been talking with strangers online. 

The boy’s mother took them up to the boy’s room, which was painted pink and filled with plushies and posters of boy bands and idols, and a set of a skirt and sweater that he obviously didn’t get to wear hung up by the mirror. Sam and Dean shared a look; the boy was obviously supported by his family so it didn't didn't seem likely that he might have just taken advantage of the other missing girls to fake his own running away from home.

“Did anybody else know that Alan was...” Dean motioned towards the whole room, unable to come up with a term that everyone would be okay with.

“Well this is a small town Mr. Fogerty, we asked her to keep the skirts to the house while her father managed to get the transfer to California but it is most likely that some people might have realized. She just can’t help being feminine. That’s just the way she is. I just wish we could do more for her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she wants to be a real girl and we would love nothing more but we don’t really have the money to pay for hormones right now and she’s growing up... you know… some things are starting to change.”

“So Alan... sorry, is Alan really ok?”

“Oh, Elaine.”

“Okay, so uhm, Elaine” Dean kept asking questions. About Elaine’s routines, the people she usually hung around with and so on while Sam checked her facebook. There were only a couple of friends from this town but it didn’t seem like she was being harassed in any way. 

They left the place with a couple of leads.

“So, the thing, whatever it is, drives an old truck or something like it. That’s what all the parents have agreed on, the sound of a rumbling engine moving away…” Dean sighed “I don’t know man, we both have a hunch about this but I gotta be honest and admit that this is starting to sound more like a thing for the FBI than us.”

Sam sighed “Yeah, because that would explain the last spurt of disappeared girls fifteen years ago, and then fifteen years earlier.”

Dean nodded at his brother but didn’t do much to talk about the issue.

“Besides, if it was a kidnapper, I think they would have a more... normal behaviour?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, all serial killers, or at least most of them have a particular trait that they prefer, like blonde women or males of a certain age group and stuff like that. If this was a random kidnapper then they would go for physical traits but this one must know these kids well enough to fit their preferences in character.”

“What you’re saying is that this thing doesn’t care about the fact of them being boys and girls as long as they are femenine? And that they’re close enough to the kids to tell that Elaine is physically not a girl but still likes her.”

“More like actually innocent girls? Look, Kaylee, the first kidnapped girl was the usual horse girl, Brianne was still a lot into Disney movies, Sandy and Elaine both have all these plushies and princess-like fantasies and none of them seemed eager to grow up.”

“Okay innocent but that still means virgin, right? Should we look for a dragon? What else likes virgins for breakfast?”

Sam sighed. “We need to find out before there’s another victim.”

“Yeah, good luck with that and not looking like a perv, stalking little girls.”

“Well, what else do you recommend?” Sam said a bit frustrated, throwing up his arms.

\---

The phone was on speaker on top of their tiny kitchen table; Sam and Dean both sitting at each side with a beer in hand.

“I don’t know my dear lads, you can definitely track down girls with a spell but it’s not going to be easy if you’re not a woman yourself… maybe you could try luring this thing out?”

“How? We don’t have any innocent girls lying around.”

“But you could have a boy. You just told me this thing took one.”

“Well yeah but this boy was more of a girl than a boy.”

“I still think it would be a lot easier to have a boy lure this thing out.”

“Okay Rowena, cut up the mystery, what is it you’re thinking about?”

Rowena sighed on the other side of the line, almost like she was getting frustrated with the boys stupidity, “I mean that Sam could cast a spell on himself and put on a cute skirt. He looked so pretty and I really want to see more pictures of that.”

Sam opened his mouth in shock and then turned to meet his brother’s eyes, who was looking to a completely different place, clearly avoiding him.

“You have pictures of that!? No, wait, you showed them to Rowena!?”

“Hey it’s not my fault, I was drunk! And before you ask I’m not gonna tell you where I’m keeping those.”

“You said you had gotten rid of them all!”

“Well I lied.”

“God damn it Dean!”

Rowena laughed. “You might have some ingredients in that car of yours already and given the time of year you’ll definitely find the rest easily around that wood you’re telling me about, won’t even need to climb up those hills. I’ll text Sam the spell in a moment. Please take all the pictures that you can Dean. Toodles!”

Good to her word, Sam immediately received a list of items from Rowena, most of which were definitely meant to be foraged like wild flowers and such, and the spell itself. For a de-aging spell, it looked rather easy to make. Sam sighed but showed the list to his brother and, changing to something more comfortable than fake feds suits, they stepped out of the motel and ran the car to a road near the town, ready to find the things they were currently missing.

Once Sam had everything in his magic pouch and was about to chant the spell, he realized that he actually had the same spell that had de-aged Dean once so many years ago. Feeling a little bit more secure, he began the enchanting.

The following day, Sam was laying on the bed, checking his laptop, making sure there had not been any other abductions yet while his brother came back with his new clothes. The spell had gone particularly well and he was now swimming in his own shirt and boxers. They had not taken into account the fact that his clothes were not going to shrink with him. Luckily, his hair had stayed the same length so he looked more like a girl than he ever had before. This plan, stupid as it might have sounded earlier looked a bit more sensible now.

Soon, Dean arrived with some bags under his arm, one clearly holding their food, the others most likely holding Sam’s new stuff.

“Ready for your Cinderella moment?”

Sam bitchfaced him, a thing that apparently wasn’t half as menacing now that he was twelve years old once more. Dean snickered.

“Come on princess, let’s eat, you can change later.” 

Sam had his burrito while telling Dean about his theories of which monster they might be facing. He was narrowing it down to either dragon or, and he was being extremely cautious about the last one, Artemis.

“What like, the goddess? Didn’t she help us kill Zeus that one time?”

“Well, she did but that one was because he was killing Prometheus.”

Dean nodded, giving him that one. He looked at him for a long time and snorted. “Man, this is weird. Looking at you like a runt talking like an adult.”

“Dean, I am an adult.”

“Not right now you’re not.”

Sam frowned at him but refrained from saying something. “Anyways, Artemis likes to have virgin handmaidens so maybe she’s changing her roster or something? All these girls have in common is the school where they go and the church their parents attend but nothing much apart from that.”

“And the Peter Pan complex.”

“It’s still early to confirm that, let’s hit the library and see if there’s any local lore we might have to know about.”

“Seems like a plan to me.”

When lunch was done, Sam took the other bag and went to the bathroom, oddly put off by the idea of having Dean look at him change into a dress once more.

“Uh Sam.”

“Mhm?”

“I uh… I’m sorry.” Dean looked truly embarrassed and Sam felt suspicious.

“What? Why?” 

“I asked a lady to help me buy a set of clothes ‘for my little sister’ because it would be awkward otherwise so I, uh, I didn’t realize that also meant I had to get you girl everything.” Dean looked aside, looking awkward. 

Sam looked at him frowning, trying to process what his brother had just said when he looked inside the bag and rummaged for something. Right there, below everything and next to a cute accessory backpack that could probably only hold a knife and a couple other things, was a set of girl underwear as well. He took the box out and looked at it numb. Dean started to fidget. 

“Really!? Dean???”

“I swear to god Sammy I didn’t do that on purpose!”

Sam groaned and turned back into the bathroom, slamming the door with as much force as his twelve year old body could. Once inside, he sighed and opened up the box with the soft pink underwear set and blushed. He shouldn’t feel this embarrassed, he was not even his usual six foot plus tall self so no one would ever link him to the boy he was right now but somehow the idea of not only wearing girl clothes but also putting on the underwear made him extremely self conscious. Unlike his comfy boxer briefs, the soft cotton fabric was tight in all the wrong places and it made him feel like everything was pouring over. Remembering some advice he once saw about tucking in the package, he did his best to tuck in his dick in the tight underwear, oddly glad that he was now in his twelve year old body because otherwise all of this would have been a really awkward thing to do.

Once he felt as comfortable as he could with the underwear, both the panties and the camisole, he put on the rest: A cute oversized pale rose camisole with a kawaii styled cat, a short black skirt and oxford grey thigh highs, along with a pair of fake patent leather shoes that definitely looked more expensive than what they might actually have cost. 

Finally, he brushed his hair then opened the door enough to peek, looking for Dean. Clearly conscious of his own burning cheeks and ears, he saw him turn from his bed, tv remote at hand.

“Uhm, I think I’m ready.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Sam closed the door again and took a deep breath. He opened it once more and stepped into the room looking downwards. After a second he looked up and saw the same odd look he had seen so many years ago on his brother’s face.

“Fuck Sammy, If I was your age I’d totally try to pull your pigtails right now.”

Sam gave Dean a very annoyed bitchface and walked towards the full mirror and, just like that fated night so many years ago, he looked at himself in shock.

“Crap, I think I totally would try to do the same.”

Dean laughed hard. He stood up from the bed and grabbed something Sam didn’t truly see until his brother was behind him and, with a very delicate move, he placed a headband with a big burgundy velvet ribbon on him. That was what tied the whole outfit together and Sam felt even prettier than ever, blushing hard but unable to look away from the mirror.


	3. Chapter 3

After fruitlessly spending their evening in the library, the following day Dean managed to get into the school with the pretext of searching for a new school now that they were thinking of moving to town. Sam walked along the hallway past the currently closed doors. He could see glimpses of kids and teens sitting behind their desks writing down or looking at where he presumed the teachers were standing. He had his EMF detector at hand, just in case. The principal had dismissed it as a simple toy with a laugh after Sam had very seriously told him it was to see if he could find ghosts. 

Dean and the principal were walking a couple steps in front of him, chatting amicably about the hardships of finding good quality education in America nowadays. Sam grunted and laughed at the stuff Dean was pulling out of his sleeve. To many other people he would have seemed like a very concerned father but he knew better, all his tricks coming out of Desperate Housewives-like tv shows. They walked throughout the entire school; hallways, laboratories, library, field, cafeteria, theatre, where Sam ran to jump onto the stage and run around it once he was allowed by the principal. He ran back and since he was still getting used to his new body’s height, he tripped and fell into Dean’s arms.

“Wow, careful there.” Dean chuckled. “So, what do you say? You like this place?”

Sam looked upwards tangled in his brother’s strong grip and bright smile and blushed; he didn’t understand how Dean was able to fall into the fatherly figure role so easily. He pushed himself away and nodded, grabbing the edge of his jacket and standing close to him, suddenly very aware of the show he was putting on. The director chuckled fondly and moved the tour somewhere else.

Finally, Sam asked if he could stay for a class just as they had planned. Once he was assigned to a room, Dean went back to the principal’s office to talk about enrolling papers and what-not. 

Despite realizing that this was for a case and he was very definitely no longer a twelve year old, Sam still felt his stomach churn in a very clear remembrance of years past, when he had to go into a room as the new kid. Fortunately, he was a hundred times more self assured now than then so he easily stepped up when the teacher asked him to introduce himself.

“Sam Winchester. Nice to meet you.”

Everyone bustled with excitement and Sam felt his cheeks reddening when he heard that many comments were about the fact that he was such a pretty girl. Eventually, he was sat by a kid called Trevor and asked to share his books. After a tiny struggle where Trevor tried to tease him taking the books away and Sam retaliated by saying he would tell him off to the teacher for being such a baby, Sam was able to take class with the rest of the kids that, fortunately, had nothing supernatural going on.

Besides the less usual items like a pocket knife, silver, holy water and so on, nicely hidden at the bottom, he had a notebook and a pen in his tiny backpack so he grabbed them and began to properly take class.

The following hour, still in Literature, they were moved to the library for reading. Sam was shown the reading shelves where the school had strategically placed all the reading material by year and he quickly went to find a book. He couldn’t quite remember what he had read on his own sixth grade, his memory torn between Ann Frank and To Kill a Mockingbird. He did remember he wanted to read something more adult oriented to prove he was old enough to hunt but he was still not sure. In the end, he was only going to be there for less than an hour so it didn’t really matter what he decided to grab. And then, a particular book called his attention. Smirking, he took it and sat at the table.

The rest of the hour passed swiftly. The librarian, a young lady with a long flowing red skirt and a wooden medallion hanging on a piece of leather that would probably look better in the hippie San Francisco scene praised him for his concentration and calm behaviour. Well, her, because the woman had obviously assumed Sam was a girl. It was interesting for Sam to see how everyone addressed him at the moment; people seemed more open to talk to him when they thought he was a cute girl. 

“You know? I expected a girl like you would rather prefer Little Women or The Secret Garden.”

Sam smiled politely, “De—Dad likes this one. There’s treasure and adventure and a dragon.”

The lady snickered and sat near Sam, her jet black long hair creating a curtain between their gazes.

“You really like your dad, don’t you?”

Sam looked at her and nodded without a doubt. 

“He’s the best.”

“Did he come to school with you today? Oh, I know! It’s the handsome man I saw with Mr. Wallace, right?”

Sam felt a twinge in his gut. Something must have shown in his face because the lady started to laugh.

“Oh please, don’t look at me like that, I would never try to snatch your dad away from you.”

Sam fixed his eyes on the book pretending to concentrate but still felt his cheeks burning. The lady stood up to check other kids that were starting a ruckus and left Sam, ruffling his hair with such force that Sam was sure she had plucked a couple of hairs. For some reason, her action made him feel a lot more self aware and frustrated with himself. 

Minutes before the bell rang, Dean appeared at the library to pick Sam up and began flirting with the lady whom Sam now barely realized was of asian features. He realized that maybe that had been the reason he had felt so wary about her, she was the kind of girl Dean loved to see in his stupid magazines. Fuming, he moved towards Dean and clung on to his arm. The lady snickered in joy while Dean raised an eyebrow at Sam. Eyebrow that Sam did not see, concentrated on giving the lady the stink eye.

“Dude, what was that about?”

Sam was doing his best to put on the seatbelt while Dean started the engine of the car.

“Nothing.”

Dean hummed, “Nothing. Huh?”

Sam felt his ears go red. 

“No.”

“Did she do or say something to you?”

Sam huffed, “She didn’t Dean... I just don’t like her!”

“Okay, okay, no need to get so bitchy about it.”

Sam grunted. A nice couple of minutes in silence passed.

“So, did you find anything else?”

“Not really” Sam sighed “The kids around me were pretty normal. Kind of annoying but normal.”

Dean smirked, “You’ve never been good with kids, not even when you were the same age.”

Sam snickered, “I guess you’re right.”

Despite the pressing matter of being in the middle of a case, Sam allowed himself to watch the road pass by and admire the rays of sunshine going through the dense trees around them, wondering idly if Dean would take the same burger with bacon for lunch.


	4. Chapter 4

“Come on Dean!”

Dean huffed. “No Sam!”

“Deeeeean!”

“No!”

“Just a little!”

Dean turned to look at his brother annoyed, not without realizing the few people around them were already looking at them. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren't you?”

Sam ran towards him and hugged his torso, looking at him from below, doing his best puppy dog eyes.

“Pleeeeease!”

Dean groaned. “Alright, alright. But you’re gonna let me take some pictures later for Rowena.”

“Deal.”

Sam let go of his torso and Dean turned his back to his brother and kneeled down. Sam ran towards his brother’s back and threw himself on it ready for the piggy back ride he had managed to get. Dean grabbed his legs with ease and stood up once more. Unable to avoid it, Sam began to giggle. Dean moved his head in reprobation but he couldn’t stop smirking as well, listening to Sam. His very young brother’s giggles felt like suddenly finding an oasis after walking tirelessly through a desert.

Sam let his chin rest on his brother’s head, arms tight around his neck. It had been a spur of the moment thing and he didn’t regret any part of it. 

Dean carried Sam all the way to the Impala but instead of dropping him on the ground once more, he crossed the street.

“Dean?”

“If you’re making me carry you like a kid then I’ll take you where the kids go.”

Saying this, he strode towards the playground and unceremoniously dropped Sam. Sam looked around at the currently abandoned place that promised to be for his entertainment only, the rest of the children still at school and only a couple of toddlers in the sandbox.

“Are you kidding me?”

He felt Dean pushing him forward softly.

“Come on Sammy, I thought you wanted to be a child!”

Sam turned back and was about to call him something nasty when he saw his brother already glancing at a group of ladies apparently doing a stretching session before their run. He frowned and felt the frustration grow inside. If Dean thought he was the only one that was going to get away with stuff he was going to be rather disappointed.

“NO!”

He screamed, startling Dean and calling the ladies' attention.

“I want to go to the swings!”

“Well then go to the swings!” Dean was frowning already, motioning at the swings dismissively.

“But I want you to push me!”

“Wha— You don’t need me to push you!”

Sam ran towards Dean’s hand and began to pull with all his limited strength. “I want you to push me! DADDY PLEASE!” 

Dean stumbled forward a couple of steps, he looked sadly at the group of ladies that were currently looking at him very judgmentally and then gave up frustrated when he realized that even if he threw Sam at the playground none of the girls would pay him attention anymore. 

“Urgh, Alright. Alright I say!”

Sam sent him a shit eating grin and ran towards the swings laughing. Dean pressed his fingers over his frowning forehead and sighed. He was definitely going to make Sam pay for this one.

When he finally reached the swings, Sam was already sitting very properly on the middle one, waiting for Dean to push him and giggling.

“You better get ready for this, _Samantha_.”

Dean pushed Sam so hard that Sam could only let out a high pitched, surprised yelp. When he got himself together from the scare he gruffed.

“That’s not a way to treat a lady!”

Dean huffed “Well I’m so sorry princess, I thought you liked thrills.”

Sam glared at Dean the moment the swing went past him all the way back and showed him the tongue. Dean answered back with a cheeky smile. Despite everything, Dean kept pushing Sam a lot more softer.

“This is too slow...”

Dean raised his eyebrow and pushed him harder until Sam was effectively going up and down in a pendulum motion.

“Higher! I wanna go higher!”

“You’re going to fall”

“I won’t!”

Dean pushed even harder and couldn’t stop smiling when Sam began to laugh wholeheartedly. He had never been able to push him that high when they had been at the playground age and he was feeling some sort of redemption from that particular guilt he’d had.

Sam on the other hand was elated. He was basking in the feeling of being able to do something he had not been able to do so many years ago; regaining a part of that childhood that he’d had to leave behind so fast and he liked it. In the middle of his reverie, he briefly wished from the bottom of his heart he could stay like this forever.

Suddenly, he heard a high pitched cry and a rumble and saw movement on the edge of the woodsy area beyond the park, but it wasn’t a shadow. it was the complete opposite of shadow; it was pure flame and shimmer and he could not believe what he thought he was seeing.

He jumped from the highest point of the swing and almost tripped when he landed but he didn’t stop looking at the thing and began to run towards it despite Dean’s initial call. In the middle of his sprint, he couldn’t find the _thing_ anymore and stopped panting a little. A second later his brother was by his side. 

“Dude, what’s up?”

They both heard again the deep rumble that reminded them of a finely tuned motor ready to burst into speed getting away from them and froze for a moment. Sam looked at Dean confused and then back to the edge of the forest. Trying to gather his thoughts, he took a deep breath, grabbed Dean’s hand and walked towards the unknown. Once they were a couple meters into the place, Sam looked around puzzled, obviously searching for something. Dean stopped him with a soft tug.

“Sam... Sam, I can’t follow you if you don’t talk.”

Sam looked at his brother and huffed a bit frustrated, “It’s just… I think… I think I saw a… bird?”

“A bird?”

“Yes, a bird. Or something like it… It was, it was flaming red and freaking huge! But I think it went away, it disappeared before we heard that noise.”

“Well, I didn’t see anything take flight. Bet I would catch that too if it’s as big as you say.”

“What if it can shapeshift?”

“What? Like dragons?”

“Yes! I… Let’s ask Cas, see if he finds anything about shapeshifting birds.”

“Okay.”

The brothers walked away from the forest while a soft blur of red peeked from behind a large trunk, far behind them. Before stepping out into the park, Sam heard a ruffle of leaves and a rumble once more. He looked back but saw nothing. Frowning, he turned back to follow his brother back to the Impala.

They spent the rest of the evening waiting for Castiel’s call back while Sam was desperately trying to find something better than just three paragraphs on the wiki of any given bird-like creature. An hour later Dean sighed and gave another swallow to his beer.

“Dude, knock it off, it’s easier for Castiel to find something. Come on, let’s see what we find on the tv.”

Sam stopped typing and sighed, “I’m sorry Dean I just… have you wondered if those girls are still alive? Maybe we’re letting them die while stalling in here.”

Dean got up with a groan and moved towards Sam, “I know Sam, but Castiel is doing all he can. Now come on over, let big brother pamper the princess a bit.” 

Sam frowned at Dean in question while his brother gave him a shit eating grin. In a flash, Dean shut the laptop and picked Sam up from the chair before he could react. Sam squealed.

“What are you doing!?”

Dean laughed and threw Sam at the bed and then himself, he manhandled Sam until he was half laying on top of his chest, an arm surrounding him. 

“Alright, what do you wanna see?” Dean began to click the remote. “Night of the Living Dead? Mad Max?” He looked at Sam, who was fumbling, arms crossed around his chest. “Alright, Casa Erotica it is then.”

“Dean!”

Dean laughed, eventually finding a channel doing reruns of Scooby Doo and left it. After a couple of episodes Sam was feeling less upset, Dean's grins and barks of laughter shaking the both of them and causing the younger brother to giggle as well. It felt good, and more importantly, it felt _safe_ to be in his brother’s arms like that. He wondered for a pained second if his brother had ever wanted to do these simple things with him when they were young, if he had actually refrained from doing so because he had to be there for him as both father and mother. He looked upwards to glance at Dean’s profile for a moment and turned back to the tv blinking hard to stop his eyes from tearing up. Unconsciously, he cuddled himself more in the nook between Dean’s chest and arm and hugged him, a leg thrown over his brother’s huge thighs and sighed. Dean stiffened slightly when he noticed the change in Sam’s humour.

“Sammy?”

Sam looked up, he wanted to tell Dean that he loved him, that he hated him sometimes, most of the time some days but deep inside he loved him unconditionally, that he would do anything to stay by his side, that he knew Dean would always do the same and more for him. But he knew Dean, and he knew himself, and he knew that none of those words were ever going to be said out loud between them. He sighed, and then, he looked back to the talking dog on the tv screen.

Dean was about to ask him what was going on when his phone rang. He stretched his arm and fished the phone from the lamp table.

“Cas?”

“I have looked for a couple of matches but none fit the description of the monster entirely.”

“Wait a sec, I’ll put you on speaker.”

Sam had already turned the tv off and was eagerly looking at Dean while he placed the phone between them.

“There ya go. Can you hear us?”

“I can, can you hear me?”

“Hi Cas!”

A pause of doubt came from the other side of the line.

“Sam? Is that you?”

Sam and Dean snickered.

“I’m twelve right now.”

“Is that the way you pretend to lure this creature?”

“Pretty much, that’s the plan, yeah.”

“Sam please forgive me but I don’t think—”

“We know Cas” Interrupted Dean, “It’s a calculated risk, now tell us about the creatures.”

Castiel sighed, you could sense his frustration seeping through the line. “As I was telling you, I have found several files, I’ve gone through eight so far but I don’t believe it’s any of them.”

“How come?”

“Well, for starters, none of these beings appear in a negative concept on their respective myths.”

“Same with the phoenix and he was a real douche, killing everyone that wronged him.”

Sam hummed, “But that one died, remember?”

“Do we know if there are more phoenixes around?”

“If these files are correct, there’s a colony in Malta but I would daresay there is no reason they should travel away from their own flock.”

“There’s an entire flock of phoenixes!?”

“Sam, geeking.”

“Right, uhm,” Sam coughed, “So we should leave the phoenixes aside.”

“There’s not much about the feeding habits of the creatures I’ve found so far but none of them seem to be inherently human flesh inclined, or carnivore at all. Most of them seem herbivores or they feed on completely different matters. I have not found anything about any rumbling sounds yet either. It would be of great help if I had at least one more clue.”

Sam and Dean sighed. They were going back through their days trying to find something more that they could use. Sam went once more through the experience of catching a glimpse of the _thing_ in the woods. The flash of bright red and gold, flowing in between the treeline like the flow of a hippie skirt. His eyes widened and he felt chills going through his body.

“Look for Chinese or Japanese birds, possibly Vietnamese? Any country with a large population of people with epicanthic folds.”

“Got it.”

“I’m sorry, epi-what?”

“Epicanthic fold.” Sam rolled his eyes when Dean kept the same puzzled look. “Slanted eyes Dean!”

Dean formed an “Oh” with his mouth and quickly put together Sam’s mental process, Sam could tell the moment everything began to fit. 

“Wow, wait a second, you think it’s Mei?” 

“Mei?”

“The librarian.”

Sam was about to nod when he gasped in betrayal.

“You _got_ her name? I don’t believe it! You were only a couple of minutes in there!”

“Dude… Asian,” was the only thing Dean could muster as an apology.

Sam groaned. 

“Uh, anyways, Mei sounds Chinese so maybe start with the Chinese lore?”

“I’ll get to it. Take care Dean, Sam.”

Sam could feel the stress on his name. Castiel was bad at cueing his feelings but was still able to convey quite a bit of sternness to his voice when necessary. He flinched.

“Alright, we’ll be waiting for anything. Call us asap.”

“Bye Cas.”

The line went dead, the brothers sighed. A little bit tired, a little bit annoyed, a little much frustrated about the fact that they were still at square one. 

“Hey.” Dean turned towards Sam. “Wanna go back to the park?”

Sam sighed, it was a long shot but they didn’t have much else to do.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam went into the playground, his trusty gun and pocket knife in his backpack, since the skirt didn’t have enough hold to keep it tight against his body. He played on the slide and on the see-saw and on the swings once more looking around into the forest searching for signs of the thing he had seen before. That was until he was encountered by some kids a bit younger than him who had, for some unexplainable reason chosen him as leader of the pack for the day, much to his own chagrin and Dean’s delight. Eventually, he sat on top of the climbing set and sighed deeply once the other kids were gone, four hours later. 

“Hey.” Sam turned downwards to see Dean standing by the set. “You good?”

Sam opened his mouth to answer but let out the biggest yawn. Dean snickered and stretched his arms towards Sam. 

“Come on Sammy, let’s get some rest.”

Sam moved towards his brother’s arms and allowed himself to go limp on him, surrounding Dean’s waist with his legs. 

“M’not tired.”

They heard Sam’s stomach growl.

“Right, you’re not tired, you’re damn hungry.”

Sam groaned but didn’t have it in him to bicker at the moment.

He didn’t remember well what happened after that; the kid’s meal at the diner that Dean ordered for him going highly unnoticed, bite after bite of chicken nuggets and fries lathered with ketchup that he oddly enjoyed in the middle of his tiredness along with the strawberry milkshake that for some reason reminded him of Castiel. He barely recalled showering and changing into a lot more comfy cotton shirt of his that looked more like a nightgown on his current body.

He somehow remembered Dean moving around the room for a while, making too much noise for his own liking until he eventually tucked Sam better in his sheets, kissing his temple and landing on his own bed with a mix of a sigh and a groan. He remembered drowsing into darkness and then waking up with a start to a dark room trembling. He realized in the middle of his haze that his own adult body might not have felt it, but the child that he was now did feel the cold of the night more acutely.

He tried to go back to sleep and, after an undetermined amount of time, he sighed sadly and shuffled from his bed, carrying his pillow through the gap between both beds and throwing it by Dean’s. He opened the sheets and climbed in, effectively stirring his brother.

“Sam?”

Sam grunted, he fluffed his pillow and made a ball of himself in a clear action that demanded spooning. Dean sighed half asleep and passed his arm over his brother, covering him with warmth. Sam quickly drifted back to sleep.

The next time he opened his eyes, morning was coming but it was still not daybreak, and yet _something_ had woken him up. 

With eyes wide open, he looked at the window and saw the shadow of a huge thing with wings ruffling on the other side of the wall, the rumbling noise clearer than before. He hitched a breath and moved away from the bed, unaware that his brother had not woken up despite his movements. He peeked through the curtain and finally saw the thing, casting a shadow over him.

He ran towards his sleeping brother and pushed him, urgently whispering his name in a hurry. Dean stirred but not much and so Sam went to grab his clothes and put them on haphazardly along with his backpack. Finally, he took out his gun and secured it on his back once more. He did his best to stir Dean again but barely managed to make him open up an eye.

“Dean, come on Dean, damn it!” 

Desperate, worried that he would lose the chance to track the thing down, he walked towards the door and unbolted it as carefully as he could. The moment the door was slightly ajar, a strong wind slammed it inwards, throwing Sam to the ground. 

The ruckus finally stirred Dean out of the trance he had been forced into by the rumble of the bird. He sat-up on his bed to see Sam struggling to move away from the creature’s claws but failing. Dean quickly grabbed his gun and got up from his bed, running to help his brother who was now disappearing from the frame of the door. He stepped outside screaming for his brother, things suddenly going silent in the middle of the stress Dean was feeling, being held back by a strong gust of wind, seeing Sam screaming, hands reaching towards him from above and going further away. And all Dean could do was point his gun at the massive bird, shoot a couple of times and see that he had been able to hurt it but not in any way maime it enough to make it drop his brother and fly away.


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel was going through several files that he had already singled out with dexterity and placed them in front of him. He paused on one for a second.

“How many heads did you say this thing had?”

“Nine Cas! NINE! And it was massive! At least three feet taller than me! It’s wings were twice as wide!”

Dean was pacing up and down like a caged lion in the room. He had all his weapons ready and he was going to bolt out of the place as soon as Castiel told him how to kill that goddamned thing. He heard the shuffling of paper on the other side of the line.

“It’s a Jiu Tou Niao.”

“It’s a What? Whatever, how do I kill it?”

“You need to kill it in its lair. The lore is very specific about this Dean so listen carefully. Do you have a pen?”

Dean grabbed the notepad by his side.

“Yeah I do, speak up.”

He began to note down Castiel’s instructions and huffed frustrated. 

“Dude, I don’t have anything like that here, do you think the crossbow can work? … Alright, worth a try.” Dean noted down a couple more things “Yeah, no, he has his phone but I lost the signal, he’s probably up in the mountain. … No, it’s okay. I can track him down. … Alright. … Yeah … I know … I said I KNOW Cas, you think I’d let anything happen to Sam!?” Dean sighed in frustration. “Okay, see ya later.”

Hanging up, Dean grabbed his stuff and drove to the only store in town that probably had what he needed. Minutes later, he opened the door of the gardening shop run by an old lady and showed her his most charming smile.

“Hello ma’am, I was wondering if you have any large bamboo stalks?”

\---

When Sam was finally back on the ground, he had seen quite a stretch of woods pass by below him and felt the wind getting colder the more they went upwards. Finally, they went down to earth and the bird opened with ease a heavy iron gate hidden behind a bunch of bushes right by the side of the mountain with one claw while the other held Sam easily against the ground.

Sam kicked and tried to fight but was unable to move. When the gate was open, the bird clawed him up again and threw him inside the cave, slamming the door back. 

Frustrated, Sam stood up and ran towards the gate, pushing against it with all his might to no avail. He groaned.

“Let me out stupid bird!”

The bird cackled and her cackle turned into laughter as she turned back to human. 

“Calm down girl, I don’t like it when my food gets angry at me.”

“I’m not your food.”

“Oh no, not yet.”

She smiled back, turned into a bird once more and left again.

Sam did his best to move the gate but it was too heavy, it probably would have been too heavy even for his normal self. Huffing, he gave up and decided to investigate. Grabbing his backpack, he took the flashlight and lit it up.

He didn’t have to walk much, a couple of turns that showed some nooks here and there and an open cavernous area after the passage came to view, the ceiling high enough that the bird could probably stand up freely. What seemed like breathing holes at the highest part worked as the only lightsource in the place. He saw a bunch of things gathered together and pointed his light at them. The things squirmed.

“Hello?”

A small head peaked from the bundle. Sam recognized her immediately. 

“...Elaine?”

The girl blinked. “Who are you?”

Sam approached her and the rest of the girls. He could see by their looks that they were underfed and then saw Kaylee, the first one to be kidnapped ten days ago laying on the floor in the worst state of them all, eyes fluctuating between consciousness and stupor. Sam took her wrist and tried to tell her vital signs. He realized soon that they were in a terrible situation. 

“Hi... I’m Sam, Sam Winchester. I’m here to rescue you.”

“How? You’re trapped here with us.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry. Dean. My brother. He will come and save us.”

A walk around the place helped Sam assess their situation. A cereal bowl was strategically placed below a drip at a corner of the cave. It filled up after three hours, which meant it could be okay to keep the thirst of a person but never enough for five kids. What really bothered him was the fact that the kids were not being immediately killed but they were apparently forced to fast. Not only that, he was sure that the bird would eat them once they died, or when they were close to death but there were no bones or anything showing that there had been other kids in there before. That didn’t mean much in and of itself; owls were well known for keeping their nests clean by throwing out any carcasses.

Sam grimaced; he should start thinking on a way out instead of thinking about death. He sat back to back to Elaine. The cave was cold and that didn’t help at all to keep a positive mood. He began to rummage in his backpack. His gun was okay for when the monster was human but he couldn’t do much with it at the moment.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m thinking how to get you out of here.”

“We can’t go out.” The girl Sam identified as Brianne finally talked “The door is so heavy it doesn’t even need a lock. You didn’t see?”

Sam had seen that on his second tour around the confines of the cave but that wasn’t a hindrance in and of itself, it only made things a bit more complicated. It also was too early for Dean to have started looking for him. He knew that he had to give his brother some time to call Castiel and make a plan, probably learn how to kill this thing. He had to think of a way to help his brother find him and maybe also something that could stop the bird from eating the kids or attacking them in the meanwhile. Thinking about it for a moment, he took his knife from his bag and moved towards the entrance of the cavernous space once more. 

It took Dean a total of five hours to make enough arrows to fill a quiver with the bamboo he purchased. By the moment he was done, the sun was already getting at its zenith and he was ready to drive like a madman all the way to the base of the mountain. Once he parked the car, he grabbed all his hunting items and some food that he was sure the kids would need now that he knew they were most likely alive thanks to Castiel. He then mapped out the general direction he was looking for with his compass and a map and slow but steady, he began his way up. 

Around the same time, Sam finished the excruciating task of carving the sigils in the cave and covering them with some of his blood. Satisfied with his job, he sighed.

"What are those?"

Elaine was approaching him from behind.

"They're a safety measure.” He gave her a smile. “Uhm, by the way, how much do you think you can move?”

“Why?”

“I might need your help later on.”

Around forty minutes after Dean began his climb, wondering if he would be good enough to find Sam quickly, he noticed that there was a constant, repeating sound in the distance. It was still far away but he clearly noticed the very unnatural repetitive motion of the sound. A strong clang followed by two quick beats and then a blank space. He smirked, did his best to gather the general direction where the sound was coming from and started to walk once more.

An hour later he heard the odd rumbling sound that he had associated with the bird reaching his position from behind. He hid immediately under a thick bush but looked upwards searching the sky. He didn’t know how nobody ever saw the goddamned massive bird come and go but he didn’t really care at the moment. Checking her trajectory, several meters away from where he was originally heading, Dean retraced his route and began hiking again once the danger was gone. He quickened his pace when, around ten minutes later, the banging stopped with the loudest clang he had heard so far. 

The bird landed while turning into a woman in a very graceful demonstration of skill. She stomped towards the gate and hit it with her fist, making Sam fall backwards and lose the stone he had been using to knock against the edge of the gate.

“Stop that already you stupid girl! What the hell do you think you’re trying to do!?”

“I’m breaking the door!” 

The lady stood still for a moment and then began to cackle. She laughed and laughed until she somehow regained some composure.

“I can’t… I can’t believe it! You really think you can break this door!?”

She was bending over, laughing some more, unaware of Sam’s smirk. He stood up, ran towards the bars of his prison and gripped them tight, he did his best to look angry. 

“Of course I can! If I try hard enough!”

The lady stopped laughing and banged the door once more with her fist, her face suddenly transformed into a mask of anger that surprised Sam.

“Don’t be an idiot girl! You can’t break this door open! You’ll never get away from here! And no one will ever find you! No one will ever know you’re here, not even your father!”

Sam frowned, “Of course I will get out of here! De—Dad will find me and he’ll get me out of here!”

The lady gave Sam a twisted smirk. “Yes, hang on to that hope of yours, you stupid daddy’s little girl. I want to see how that hope leaves your eyes when you’re on the ground unable to move.”

Realization hit Sam like a strong hit to the gut; the woman was trying to egg him into trying, into believing that he was going to be rescued. This meant that what the monster fed on was not really the flesh of the kids, and it had not been the innocence of the girls, as he had believed. It had been their hope. Sam felt the fire inside him burn harder and the need to rescue these kids stronger.

“You won’t ever be able to eat my spirit. Because I’ll never stop believing. Because he will come and save me. Save Us. He always does.”

The lady was momentarily taken aback but quickly looked down at Sam, ill intended, and roared at his face. He stood up against it, only flinching because of the loud noise but unmovable. The lady eventually calmed down.

“Whatever, I’ll have enough time to break you. There’s one bound to be ready for picking soon enough, maybe tonight.”

“You’re evil.” 

She smiled at him with a wink and took off towards the sky once more. Sam sighed and allowed himself to slide to the ground. He was certain Dean would save him but that would probably not hold true for Kaylee if this all took much longer. He looked around for his rock and walked towards the gate once more. He would keep banging until Dean arrived, no matter what. 

About a mile away, in hiding, Dean saw the bird jumping up to the sky.


	7. Chapter 7

Sam felt his hands cramping and maybe yes, he should stop banging the gate with such force but he was still upset about his conversation with the monster. Suddenly, he heard his brother’s voice call him twice. He stilled and looked around.

“Dean!?”

Dean came out of some bushes and brushed tiny broken branches and leaves from his jacket. Sam felt his chest fill with joy.

“Dean! You’re here! Finally!” Sam was almost jumping “Quick! I need your help to get everyone out!”

Dean leaned over the gate to grab the bars. He tested it and pulled with all his strength but it didn’t move. He eventually let go of it and clicked his tongue. 

“Yeah, I guessed it was not gonna be that easy.”

“Well then let’s look for a different way out, there are some breathing holes that—”

“Actually little brother, I’m gonna need you to stay inside the cage for a bit more.”

Sam frowned at Dean, not understanding what he wanted at all. 

Hours later when the night arrived, the bird landed gracefully in front of the gate and began to pace with a jump to her step, almost like a kid that’s expecting a treat from good behaviour, but slowly stopped in front of the gates because of the conversation she was listening to inside.

“—I can’t leave everyone behind! Look at them! They can’t even walk!”

“I’m sorry Sammy but we can’t stay here either! Let’s go back to the road, call 911 and then—”

Dean’s clear voice alerted her to his presence and she refrained from doing much more than grabbing the gate.

“NO!”

“Sam! Sam stop that! Sam come here!”

“No! She’s gonna eat them!”

“Look Sam, I get it, this woman is nuts but I had enough problems getting in here for you so...”

The lady turned downwards and, sure enough, there were clear trails of the gate being dragged slightly open. Enough for a man to get inside.

“...I’ll open the gate for both of us. We can run down fast enough and call the police and—”

The lady frowned in anger and slammed the gate open and ran into the cave without worrying about closing it back. She arrived in the central area, nails already long and sharp like bird talons.

“How could you—!?” 

She looked around but there was no one, not even the other children. The only things in the place were a cellphone letting out a recorded conversation and some glow sticks illuminating the interior of the cave. She looked at them puzzled and then she heard footsteps behind. She turned around and found Dean standing at the entrance of the inner cavern with a smirk and a loaded crossbow in his hands.

She dashed towards him, ready to run away through the passage leading to the exterior before Dean could lift up the crossbow when she saw Sam touching the sigils he had carved hours ago at the entrance of the cavern inside. The opening behind flared up, effectively trapping her in. She sneered at them and cackled.

“You’ll regret daring to do this!”

In a flash, she turned into a bird and threw her talons at Dean. 

On the other side of the flaming barrier, once they clearly heard the sounds of the battle starting, the girls came out of one of the dark nooks in the curving path to the exit. Elaine was doing her best to carry Kaylee while Sandy and Brianna held each other walking. When they stepped outside, they began to push the buttons of the satellite phone Dean had brought with him to ask for help.

When Dean had arrived earlier, he’d given Sam the food and provisions he had brought with him. He had even brought a large coffee thermos with Pedialyte that he could use to give to Kaylee. He’d been glad to know that she was still alive, even if barely.

“All right, that’s all, you’ll know how to manage the food I guess, we need the girls to be at least a little bit more nourished if we want them to walk away from here. We need to talk about the plan.”

“What plan?”

“Cas gave me all the pointers he had about the thing. Apparently it’s a bastard version of a phoenix and unless we destroy it in the nest, it will come back from death.” 

“Man, that’s shitty.”

“Yep, and I can’t move this damned gate so we’ll have to make it open it up and walk inside before we do something else. Is there a place where we can hide the other children?”

“It’s alright, I know what place to use.”

Dean had smirked and fluffed Sam’s hair through the gates “That’s my brother.”

Blushing, Sam had slapped his hand away. “Dean, for the last time, I’m 36!”

“Not right now you’re not.” 

Sam had huffed at Dean while Dean laughed. After they’d recorded the phone conversation Sam had gone back inside, told the girls the plan and had helped move Kaylee along with Elaine. He’d taught Brianne how to slowly give her the Pedialyte, to avoid oversaturating her stomach and had had to teach them how to eat their own portions for the same reason.

“Just remember to give her a little gulp every fifteen minutes and everything will be alright. Count the time, it’s very important, right now her body is very weak and she can’t stand a lot of stuff in her stomach.”

Elaine had looked at him in awe. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna help Dean kill this thing.” He’d placed his hand on Elaine’s shoulder and had smiled reassuringly when he’d seen her frown, worried. “It’s okay, we do this all the time.”

Now, Sam was throwing himself at the ground and away from her claws; she had thought the barrier would go off if she made Sam step away from it but unfortunately for her, the flames were still up. Meanwhile Dean was aiming at one of her heads and shooting.

The screech the rest of the heads made was enough to make him want to cower and cover his ears but Dean had to take advantage and attack once more while the bird was distracted by the pain. He had already lost a couple of arrows that he could probably use once more if he had the chance to get them.

Sam, following the same train of thought, dashed away from the scuffle between Dean and the giant bird, smirking when he heard another screech of pain and had just gotten all three arrows in his hand when he heard a hard thud and Dean’s grunt. He looked back only to see his brother falling, staggering when he landed and almost losing his footing. He had been thrown against a wall. Sam panicked when he saw the bird dart her multiple beaks at his brother and ran towards her feet, jabbing one of the arrows he had picked up into her thigh. The bird stumbled but not without kicking Sam painfully. He felt himself soaring and landing awkwardly on a soft surface. He felt Dean’s hands quickly sorting him safely back on the ground.

“Sam! You okay!?”

Sam grunted, “Yeah”

He felt more than saw his brother nod and aim the crossbow at the bird while he stepped on the floor. It was now that he felt a sharp pain on his arm. He touched it and saw blood on his fingers. The bird’s talons had gashed a good part but it probably could be fixed with stitches. Another screech told Sam that his brother had gotten another head.

The struggle went on like a frantic and aggressive dance, where the men moved forwards sometimes and retreated in others while the bird did it’s best to sink her talons in them. When there were four heads missing, Sam took the crossbow that Dean had been forced to drop in a desperate diversive measure and shot her wing with enough precision to stick the arrow in one of her joints. The resulting injury disabled her from using that wing properly and gave him enough advantage to run to Dean and give back the crossbow which he readily loaded with another bamboo arrow that found its mark and dispatched another head. After some more turns and attacks, Dean managed to strike the last head and, with a final shriek full of ill intent, the bird dropped to the floor.

Sam and Dean were sweating and panting. Sam dropped to the ground, thankful that everything was over while Dean cleaned his forehead of sweat and moved forward, readying his machete and severing the cluster of multiple heads from the body. Once that was done, he grabbed the necklace that Sam had seen the lady wearing and threw it at Sam.

“Here.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s proof.”

“Proof of what?”

“That I killed the bird for you.”

“Okay? And what am I supposed to do with this?”

“Hell if I know, I was just supposed to give you proof of the death of the bird. Cas said it was important.”

“You had to give that proof to me?”

“Well, technically I had to give it to the kidnapped maiden that helped me defeat the bird. So yeah, in this case, that would be you.”

Sam flushed slightly, frowning at the so called present he had received. Sometimes lore was weird in the oddest of ways.

“I think I would have preferred some feathers a lot more.”

Dean sighed, he went to one of the wings and pulled hard until he got three of the larger ones in his hand. He walked towards Sam.

“Is this okay?”

Sam caressed the feathers in his hand. 

“Yeah, this is okay.”

Tired, he stood up and chanted the words that put down the flames of the entrance and walked away along with his brother.

The girls were sitting outside; Sandy had been able to call 911 and they were expecting the arrival of anyone at any moment. Sam and Dean helped them build a fire and sat by their side, Dean taking the moment to stitch Sam’s arm, much to the girl’s fascination, until they saw a helicopter in the distance. Sam turned to bid farewell to his friends.

“Wait, you’re not staying?”

“It would be hard for us to explain everything, it’s better this way.”

The girls nodded, each of them hugged him hard. Dean was already checking his compass and walking away.

“Come on little brother! We still got a couple of walking hours.”

Sam sighed, “I’m coming!”

Elaine stopped him.

“Wait a second, you’re a boy?”

Sam shrugged and threw his arms in a ‘would you ever know’ kind of manner. Elaine smirked in a conspiratory manner. She saw Sam and Dean disappear in the bushes bickering and began to wave her arms at the helicopter, knowing that they would eventually spot her.


	8. Epilogue

Sam sighed, he looked down and ironed his new burgundy plaid skirt as best as he could and touched his bandana wondering if the bow looked cute enough. He had decided Rowena deserved a look at the real thing sometime along the way home. Dean didn’t understand exactly why, but he had the brains not to upset Sam asking questions about it. He sighed once more and called out from the hall leading to the meeting room, where they were waiting for him, sitting around the table.

“Okay, are you ready?”

“Of course! Come on in whenever you want dear!”

Sam took in his breath and walked into the room. He saw Rowena’s eyes lit with joy and he saw Castiel looking at him with the most confused look he had ever seen on him which was saying a lot.

“So, uhm, how do I look?” 

It was silly to ask. Rowena was already cooing at him and Castiel was, well, he was. Dean on the other hand was beaming at him and lifting up his phone.

“Sammy, you look like a doll.”


End file.
